


Misplaced

by alderations



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Recovery, first fic for this fandom hello, it feels weird calling all these characters by their first names but it also feels weird nOT to, vaguely implied minlace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: Renée Minkowski has lost her reading glasses six times this week, and it’s Thursday. This represents a record, both in terms of how many times she can lose track of essential items within so many days, and the absolute limits of her patience with one Douglas Eiffel.
Relationships: Doug Eiffel & Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace & Renée Minkowski
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	Misplaced

Renée Minkowski has lost her reading glasses six times this week, and it’s Thursday. This represents a record, both in terms of how many times she can lose track of essential items within so many days, and the absolute limits of her patience with one Douglas Eiffel. It’s not like he’s responsible for her memory or anything, and she’s well aware that her brain ought to be a lot more capable when it comes to keeping things in order than his, but she  _ knows  _ that this is his fault.

The problem is, Doug is not at all aware of his own shortcomings in this arena. “I promise, Renée,” he placates with a heartfelt kindness that still sits on his face like an uncomfortable film, “I wouldn’t have  _ hid  _ them from you! I can help you look if that’ll make you feel better? Have you tried—”

“No! No, I don’t need your help, Doug. I just need—I—shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.” She took a strained breath and closed her eyes, just so that she wouldn’t have to see him looking like such a stranger for just a moment. “It just. Makes me feel like I’m losing it. And after all the shit we went through, that’s… hard for me to deal with.”

Doug snorts. “Yeah, you’re telling me. And I don’t even remember the Empty Man or any of that shit. But, anyway, I was gonna suggest that we check the fridge. It’s always the places you don’t expect, y’know?”

“Why,” sighs Renée, “would my glasses be in the fridge, Douglas.”

“You put them there?”

She manages to keep from rolling her eyes until she’s already stormed past him, heading toward the kitchen. He’s not  _ wrong;  _ weirder things have turned up in weirder places before, though it was almost never  _ her  _ fault.

Doug follows her into the kitchen and plops his keys down on the table. “Alright, you look in the fridge and I’ll start going through the cupboards. You were just complaining yesterday about how small the writing on the peanut butter—what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

The silence between them grows sour as Renée stares, then points with one rigid finger at Doug’s discarded keys. “We have talked about this,” she grits out. “That. Is not. Where those go.”

“Renée, please. I’ll put them back in a second, I’m just trying to help right now.”

“No! No, you won’t put them back! You always say that and then you don’t put them back! That’s probably—I bet you and Lovelace were trying on my glasses again, weren’t you, and doing your dumb impressions of me, and—”

Doug raises a hand to stop her, his face twisting with concern. “We did that once, when you first got them. What, do you think we go around mocking you behind your back?”

“That’s beside the point!” The tremble in her voice gives her feelings away more than her words ever could. “Keys live in the bowl by the door. Keys do  _ not  _ live on the kitchen table. It’s for your own good, you know you’ll forget them otherwise!”

“Yeah, but—you—”

_ “They! Don’t! Live! Here!” _

It takes Renée a few seconds longer than Doug to realize that there are tears streaming down her face, as he closes the cabinet behind himself and rushes to pull her into a hug. She tries to stammer an apology, knowing that there’s no possible reason why she should be crying about misplaced keys, but Doug just presses her face into his shoulder until she can’t get the words out all the way. “I know,” he mumbles into her hair. “I’m sorry, I should’ve listened to you.”

“This is so stupid,” she groans into his shirt.

“It’s really not, Com—Renée,” chimes Hera from her all-seeing place in the extraordinarily bootlegged Alexa. “As humans go, you are very dependent on systems. You’ve always been organized. And since we don’t have all the strict space protocols to fall back on anymore, you have to build your own.” She chuckles. “Which is pretty much the exact opposite of, like, everything Doug Eiffel has ever done in either of his lives.”

Doug snorts. “This is true.”

“Ooh, Eiffel, didn’t I warn you about the keys?” Doug and Renée’s heads snapped toward the doorway in unison as Isabel shuffled in, an ill-fitted pair of glasses balanced atop her head. “In other news, I found the glasses, Minkowski. You’re welcome.”

There’s nothing Renée can do to keep her face from twisting in a frown. “What do you mean, you  _ warned  _ him?”

Isabel smirks. “I said, ‘hey, Eiffel, y’know how we’re all basically traumatized space veterans, and how Renée feels the best when she has some control over her environment? Why don’t we listen to her when she asks us to respect that, since she’s the glue holding our little ragtag-band-o’-misfits together?’”

“I mean, you didn’t use those exact—”

“Hush, Eiffel.” Renée pulls back from him and takes her reading glasses from Lovelace’s head. “I—I guess I—well. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“In that case,” Isabel replies, smoothing one hand over Renée’s shoulder, “I think it’s time you started giving yourself some more credit.”

“Seconded,” Hera chimed.

When Renée turns around to hear Doug’s inevitable opinion, he (and his keys) have already disappeared.

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii hello I randomly got upset about some object Not Being Where It Lives and my brain was like "hey what if minkowski. what if you validated your own whack ass organizational system by projecting it onto characters you love & relate to." so here we are
> 
> hopefully this, like, made any sense whatsoever. i have a lot of feelings about minkowski. and also minlace invented love, im not accepting constructive criticism on my opinions at this time thanks
> 
> comments are always beloved! come hang out with me @alderations on tumblr twitter etc etc


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